PLEASURE AND REPENTANCE [Literary Anthology/British] AD: Terry Hands; D: Patrick Tucker; DS: Anna Steiner; P: Brooklyn Academy of Music i/a/w Brooklyn College, b/a/w the Royal Shakespeare Company; T: Brooklyn Academy of Music (OB); 4/21/74-4/28/74 (5)
Note: no photos are available for this production.
This collection of literary selections, described as “a
light-hearted look at love,” was given by the visiting Royal Shakespeare Company
as part of a two-program repertory; the other was a revival of
the well-known Hollow Crown
anthology. With a distinguished company led by Sir Michael Redgrave, the
program offered an eclectic assortment of letters, poems, dramatic excerpts,
fiction, and songs. Authors included Sir Walter Raleigh, Ogden Nash, Alfred
Tennyson, John Keats, Charles Dickens, Mickey Spillane, John Lennon and Paul
McCartney, Oscar Wilde, D.H. Lawrence, Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, and
many others.
The reviews were highly complimentary for both the material
and the performances. “The choices were made by Terry Hands, and there isn’t a
dud among them,” remarked Edith Oliver. Clive Barnes said of Redgrave that he “is
still the master of the aside, and his voice has a touching beauty. . . . He
can speak poetry so that the technique of the poem vanishes into air, and only
the poem itself remains.” His company included Sara Kestelman, James Grout,
Paul Hardwick, and Martin Best.
